Research report appraisal: how much understanding is enough?

Abstract

When appraising research papers, how much understanding is enough? More specifically, in deciding whether research results can inform practice, do appraisers need to substantively understand how findings are derived or is it sufficient simply to grasp that suitable analytic techniques were chosen and used by researchers? The degree or depth of understanding that research appraisers need to attain before findings can legitimately/sensibly inform practice is underexplored. In this paper it is argued that, where knowledge/justified beliefs derived from research evidence prompt actions that materially affect patient care, appraisers have an epistemic duty to demand high (maximal) rather than low (minimal) levels of understanding regards finding derivation (i.e. appraisers have a duty to seek a superior epistemic situation). If this argument holds assumptions about appraiser competence/ability and the feasibility of current UK conceptions of evidence based practice are destabilized.

New ways for nursing inspired by the works of Michel de Certeau

“…Meanwhile, to define the limits of the social place of nursing science, it is essential to also explore the field of procedures used by nurses in the process of knowledge production. Although there are many recent studies that attempt to show how nursing science is constructed (Bluhm, ; Granero‐Molina, Fernández‐Sola, Muñoz Terrón, & Aranda Torres, ; Lipscomb, ), it is a classic example of the work of John Paley (Paley, ). In this text, Paley offers a detailed analysis of the fact that when nurses venture into any qualitative research (despite quantitative research still being the majority in the nursing collective), certain authors and theories, sometimes in non‐critical fashion, dominate the theoretical framework of these investigations, as occurred with Heidegger and phenomenology.…”

The practice of nursing research: getting ready for ‘ethics’ and the matter of character

“…Leaving aside the problematic nature of exactly what this might entail (cf. Lipscomb ), there is an expectation that nurses in the academy should be engaged in research at a deeper level than that of students, usually by doing research of some sort. The academy certainly generates this expectation, particularly in research intensive universities.…”